Microprocessors and other processors for triggering and filtering at the SSC
Irwin Gaines · University of North Texas Digital Library (University of North Texas) · 1989
The rapid increase in processing power available in commercial integrated circuits presents the high energy physics community with important opportunities for SSC era data acquisition systems. The processors that will be available in the late 90's will allow enormous amounts of computing power to be utilized on-line and will permit commercial high level language programmable devices to be used for tasks previously performed by home-brew, hard-wired, or microcoded devices. I will describe this processor revolution, in particular with respect to the new RISC (reduced instruction set computer) microprocessor now becoming available. These processors are already commercially available with processing power of 20 VAX 11/780 equivalents per chip, and a number of different manufacturers expect chips of 100 VAX power by the early 1990's. I will also discuss the plans the Fermilab ACP group has to exploit one such RISC chip for both off-line and on-line use. Finally, I will mention digital signal processors (DSPs) and other more specialized chips that offer even greater amounts of processing power with only slightly less convenience. 5 refs., 5 figs., 1 tab.